


Trust and a Toothache

by viceversa



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, F/M, Graphic Descriptions of Dentistry, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Resolved Pining, Slibbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 11:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21098414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceversa/pseuds/viceversa
Summary: Gibbs was on a silent warpath. Jack is the only one he trusts to help.





	Trust and a Toothache

**Author's Note:**

> warning for depictions of anxiety and panic issues. and bad jokes.

Anger and frustration had radiated from Gibbs for days. Nothing his team did was good enough or fast enough, and they were internalizing the pressure, meaning no one was happy. Even the technology around him worked as efficiently as ever just to avoid what his wrath had done to a printer on day one.

Not even Bishop could get him to relax. Nor even Kasie with an off-color remark, or Ducky with his heartfelt concern. By day two, everyone on the Navy Yard knew to give him a wide berth, and on day three it escalated to strained silence and avoidance. Even Leon Vance kept to the relative safety of his office after a morning elevator ride with Gibbs.

With no discernible cause or reason for the mood, no one knew how to fix it or even address it with Gibbs. It was like dark clouds had descended on NCIS with no sunlight in sight.

Being the well-oiled machine they were trained to be, McGee, Bishop, and Torres worked their current case with very little guidance from their leader. A glare sent them running off to re-interview suspects, a grunt or growl issuing when leads turned up nothing. In fact, Leroy Jethro Gibbs had barely said a word in three days. This made interrogations confusing but effective, and luckily his team could read multitudes in his body language and the gesture made with a half-empty coffee cup in his hand.

When day three ended in a resolved case and finished paperwork, everyone in the bullpen had hopes for day four, but the next morning brought only a terse command, “Cold cases,” and more silence.

And more. 

And more.

The occasional sip of coffee followed by a grimace, the too-hard click of a mouse, and the glares to the three under his command provided the soundtrack for the morning. It was only when McGee was planning mutiny to grab some lunch, carefully coordinated with Bishop and Torres over a silent group chat, that Jack intervened from above, speaking from halfway down the staircase.

“Gibbs!” The half-whisper startled the team so bad that it sent Torres chasing after loose papers and had Bishop nearly jump out of her skin. McGee was too relieved to react. 

Gibbs just looked up sedately and saw her nod toward her office before walking back up. To be honest, he was more than thankful for Jack’s intervention. He was, after all, about to go up there on his own and ask for help when she came down to ask for his.

This way might be a little less horrible for him to deal with.

With a sharp breath, Gibbs stood and clicked once, hard, on the mouse, sending an email to Vance. With a twitch, his computer was forcefully shut down and his were things gathered.

As he passed McGee’s desk, he simply stated, “You’ve got point,” and continued to the stairs, tossing on his jacket as he went.

-

His team stared, not a little bewildered, at his retreating back. McGee recovered first, straightening in his chair.

“You heard him, I’m on point.” He paused, looking around the desk as if a new case file would pop up for him to lead. When that didn’t happen, he resumed his normal posture. “Keep digging through your cold cases. I’ll order lunch.”

Ellie and Nick shared a look, shrugged, and did just that, both a little relieved without hurricane Gibbs hanging over them. Whatever was going on, Jack could be the only one that had a shot at solving it.

-

Jack was well aware of the heavy, sharp mood downstairs. It wasn’t the first instance of the Gibbs effect she’d seen. She’d been studying it long enough to know a few tricks to pull him out of it.

In the past, his mood changed sharply and powerfully because of a sensitive case, usually one involving children or a deadline. That mood was a motivator to his team as much as it was a sign of just how sensitive and affected Gibbs was. It was frustration, anger, pain, all rolled into one and released in shouting at anyone who got too close. It was a defense mechanism.

In those cases, she had to wait until it reached a climax and pull him aside. A little breathing room away from the epicenter of the case usually allowed him to right himself, regroup, and sometimes even divulge his frustration and anger with her. The trust that took was something Jack held incredibly dear.

But this week was… different. Sure, Gibbs had a certain intense way about him. Anyone who wasn’t in his immediate circle was intimidated by him. Jack had personally seen several different probies cower under his gaze, and one actually run away from his presence.

Whatever was affecting him this time, it wasn’t their case. Their current mystery involved some mid-level embezzling ring - one male victim at the center of a dispute over money. Any murder was reason enough to be upset, but not to Gibbs, not like this. And yet, he’d been downright hostile for days - in fact, by all accounts he’d been acting more touchy than usual even before the case.

Jack would have noticed and done something earlier, but she’d been preoccupied with profiles for other teams and divisions. She’d not witnessed the current wrath of Gibbs personally. Only through second-hand accounts was she able to piece together the cloud of Gibbs’ mood.

Finally, on day four of this with no end in sight, Jack was finally free from pressing work to observe the bullpen.

It was… silent.

Gibbs and his team looked frozen in time, all reading through cold cases, not even sparing each other a glance. The stillness radiated outward, causing even the agents at the periphery of the bullpen to speak quietly into their phones and shush the copier as it beeped in protest.

Obviously, no one had gotten through to him in four days. And apparently, they’d all come running to her to complain. So, she supposed, it was up to her after all. She took some perverse pride in that responsibility.

Jack descended half the stairs, conscious of the sound her footsteps made in the cloud of silence below her.

“Gibbs!” She didn’t even mean to make it a half-whisper, but anything louder would’ve felt like yelling.

He looked up, as calm as ever even as his team jumped, and Jack could’ve sworn his shoulders relaxed. She nodded upward and left him to follow, knowing that any progress would need to be made in the relative privacy of her office.

-

Gibbs silently thanked Jack and her impeccable timing. She’d always shown up right when he needed her, whether he knew it or not.

Even that first meeting in the middle of a hurricane - she’d come into his life precisely when she was supposed to, and ever since it had been the same. Helping on cases, providing advice or just listening. Hell, she even got him to talk on more than one occasion. Gibbs had told her his deepest secret, and she’d responded with her own.

Trust like that doesn’t come around every day. It’s a rare, good thing that shouldn’t be wasted.

Trust like that was going to get him through the rest of the day.

Grimacing in pain and general discomfort, Gibbs entered Jack’s office and shut the door behind him. For half a second he contemplated locking it, lest someone come barging in, but didn’t for the sake of appearances. Jethro Gibbs didn’t get scared enough to hide behind a locked door. Well, rarely.

“Alright,” Jack said, swiveling slightly in her chair. “Apparently, the whole agency has been under attack this week. Care to tell me why?”

It was that damn sarcasm that he loved about her, the lilt in her voice as it dropped to entice him and make fun at the same time. Gibbs tucked his chin slightly to curb a smile and sat down in front of her desk. As soon as he sat, the movement jolted him and pain flared once more, his skull radiating a days-old ache.

He easily caught her concern at the sudden shift of his mood.

“Gibbs? What’s going on?”

Gibbs sighed, knowing that he had to tell someone. And that it had to be Jack. She was kind of his only hope, at this point. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her, so instead he looked at the kitschy painting of an elephant that hung behind her head. What it meant to him, the elephant in the room - well, hell. That was the whole thing, wasn’t it?

“I’ve taken the rest of the day off,” Gibbs said. He was consciously quiet and calm, and he hoped that she couldn’t hear the ever-so-slight lisp he knew was there. “And I need you to do that too. I need,” he paused, looking everywhere but at her. “I need you to drive me to an appointment.”

“What’s wrong?” Jack said quickly, on alert.

He could feel her looking over him for any sign of injury or pain, and he could even feel the tension rising in her. It only lasted a second before he waved off her attention, but a part of him warmed at her reaction. That she would so quickly jump from exasperation to outright concern was… well. Reciprocated. Thoroughly.

“I need a root canal.”

A beat of silence passed.

Another.

Jack looked at him wide-eyed and stone-faced. And then, she broke.

“WHAT?!”

Gibbs hid his jump at her exclamation, looking quickly to the door to make sure no one was standing there.

“A root - Gibbs, I thought you were really hurt or something!” She huffed out a sharp breath and pulled out a desk drawer to grab her purse. “Of course I can drive you to the dentist.” She stood and shut off her own computer. “Jesus,” she muttered.

Gibbs smartly didn’t reply and followed her out the door, hoping that since this hurdle was crossed, the rest of the day would go smoothly. As smoothly as the situation could go at any rate.

He held on to the fact that Jack would be there, even as the tight feeling in his chest grew as they got closer to the parking lot, even as the cloud of dread that had been hovering over him all week descended to nearly suffocate him; he focused on her.

-

Silence got them peacefully to the dentist. Gibbs barely said anything since they left her office, only nudging her toward his car instead of her Mini and then muttering directions as she drove.

She’s wasn’t upset. Really, she was relieved that it wasn’t something more serious. It was a toothache that had brought the great Jethro Gibbs to his knees, and a defense mechanism of silence and anger that had blocked out any prying concern.

What worried her now was his increasing tension the closer they got. It was one thing to be in pain and want to hide it, but another to avoid the reality of a dentist office visit. Was he really scared of the dentist?

Jack bit back her initial reaction to that idea. Plenty of people had irrational fears - even Gibbs. Just two weeks ago, she heard Kasie say something about leprechauns, and everyone had heard of Torres’ new habit of freaking people out with that murderous clown doll – but he kept it conspicuously away from Gibbs.

The dentist offered different circumstances. Thinking objectively, it was a place one willingly goes to be at another’s mercy. You lay prone in a chair as people talk about your teeth in a mess of jargon and you don’t get answers until the end. You can’t talk or communicate at all, your vision is limited, movement nonexistent, and there’s elements of unexpected pain.

It all came down to a lack of control and going in alone would only amplify it. Jack shuddered at the thought of framing a dentist visit to a torture session, but the triggers were all there in the circumstance.

Fear doesn’t follow rational thought. It thrives on instinct and memory. Gibbs was going into a small room where he’d be vulnerable and in pain, letting a man hover over him in a position of power and possibly inflict more pain, and he couldn’t escape it.

No wonder he was anxious about it.

Feeling more than bad for him, Jack parked the car and looked over at Gibbs. He was staring straight through the windshield, likely not seeing anything at all. A man resigned to his fate. Jack reached over and caught his hand, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Ready?”

Gibbs tried to shrug off her concerned tone. “Gotta be.”

He got out and she followed him to the door, only hesitating when he did. With an embarrassed glance toward her, Gibbs let out a quiet “Thanks,” and opened the door for her to cover, ever the gentlemen.

Jack was fully prepared to wait in the waiting room until Gibbs was done. She was all set to people watch and see what HGTV show the office put on to distract those waiting. However, when his name was called, he waited for her to stand with him and follow him down the hall.

_Wherever he leads._ She thought. _Even into the bowels of a dentist office._

She sat in the chair generally reserved for parents and watched as Gibbs maneuvered into the dentist chair. It was a sight she felt somewhat compelled to record for its novelty, but knew she wasn’t there to gawk. He obviously felt incredibly uncomfortable and vulnerable even to ask her to accompany him here. Trust, it all went back to trust.

“Alright, Mr. Gibbs, my name is Tessa and I’ll be assisting with your procedure. How are we feeling today?”

The dental assistant’s smile wavered slightly under Gibbs’ glare, but she continued on. Jack could only imagine the types of people she dealt with every day, from screaming kids to people just generally scared to be there.

“Right. I bet that tooth isn’t making you feel good, is it. Well,” she turned and got something from the station behind Gibbs’ head, “open up, this is to numb your gums up real good.”

Gibbs complied and Jack contemplated whether or not to watch the whole time or to pull out her phone to pay attention to - to be present support or passive.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes with the syringe.”

The assistant left the small room and Gibbs stared at the ceiling. Again prepared to sit in the corner of the room as moral support, Jack was further surprised when, a minute later, Gibbs reached out a hand toward her.

“Yeah?” She questioned lightly, even as she rolled her chair to his side to meet his hand with hers. 

Gibbs turned to her and her heart dropped at the look on his face. “Don’ like needles. Or dentists. Or any a’ this.”

Jack squeezed his hand. “It’s understandable. I understand.” 

He looked away and rolled his eyes, and Jack finally felt the full weight of his resignation and fear and anger at himself for feeling that fear.

“’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not Gibbs.” Jack spoke lowly and measured. “This is you having to willingly make yourself vulnerable to fix something that you can’t control, and a dentist’s office is full of stressors, not to mention that this isn’t a pleasant place to be in the first place.” Jack saw Tessa coming back out of the corner of her eye and added, “I’m here, not going anywhere okay?”

Gibbs looked back at her, but before he could reply, a smiling Tessa walked back in with the dentist following.

“Hello Mr. Gibbs,” the dentist boomed. “I’m Dr. Reyes, and I’ll be performing your root canal today.”

Gibbs shook the man’s hand, keeping his other firmly in Jack’s grasp. Jack hoped that she’d be allowed to stay close.

“Just open quickly for the needle,” Dr. Reyes took the large, metal syringe from Tessa and Jack winced along with Gibbs as he said “And a little pressure…. There. Okay, since this is your first root canal, I’ll go over the procedure while that numbs up.” The doctor sat back in his chair while Tessa updated his chart.

Jack felt Gibbs squeeze her hand slightly as the doctor spoke. She wondered if she should say something, tell the dentist to skip this part, but she took her cues from Gibbs and he was silent.

“First, I’ll drill an access hole in the top of the tooth. Then we’ll remove the infected pulp - all the nerves and blood vessels in there - by using files to scrape it out until it’s all gone.”

The pressure on her hand had increased and she matched it, half appalled herself at the description.

“Once I clear that out, I’ll fill the empty tooth canal and then fill the original access point. Since your tooth is otherwise intact and strong, you likely won’t need an additional crown, but we’ll see once I get in there.”

Gibbs’ winces had progressively lost flare on one side of his face as it numbed. Jack was wincing along with him, noticing that the dentist looked delighted at their reactions.

_Dentists are sick, sick people_, Jack thought. She took a mental note to floss more.

-

Gibbs had hoped for an afterlife since his mother died, and even more so since he lost his family. He wanted to see them again, tell them he loved them, hug them one more time. That had been his solace in life for decades.

But, if on the off chance there was an afterlife and he ended up in Hell, Gibbs imagined it wouldn’t be much different than being stuck in a dentist’s chair indefinitely having his teeth drilled while bad music played and the smell of bone dust hovered in the air.

Jack was his lifeline. She was right - this was awful for anyone - but he hated how much it affected him. He was more than glad that she had come with him, that he had made himself ask.

Gibbs was surprised with himself that he’d reached out for her in the office. He was even more surprised that she’d so readily come to him and held on without question.

He pushed out the realization of how pathetic he was being and squeezed his eyes shut as soon at the dentist - who Gibbs was personally convinced was an evil bastard, and he vowed to do a background check on him as soon as he was back at the office - leaned his chair back and brought out the drill.

_Jack_. He was anchored to her, and he promised silently to make this entire day up to her however she wanted. Dragging anyone to the dentist like this wasn’t a great move to begin with, but in reality, she was the only one he could trust with this.

And he didn’t want to be alone. Not when he had the choice not to be.

He thought back to a conversation he’d had with Grace weeks ago on that very subject. The choice not to be alone. Apparently, according to Grace, _“Anyone who’s around you and Jack for more than two minutes can see you’re dancing around each other like idiots.”_ After he got over his slight shock at the accusation, he realized at the same time as Grace that he’d made no move to deny it.

Grace was right, after all. They’d been in a dance since they met, one always moving back as soon as the other stepped forward. Last Christmas they’d come closer than ever, but he’d messed up, and backed off. Too far. And since then, a flirt, a touch, a glance - he was guilty of all of it just as she was, but neither of them - _Ow. _

Gibbs flinched as the demon with power tools did something awful to his skull.

“You okay?” Jack asked.

With his eyes open it was like reality crashed back in. He’d done a fine job of ignoring his situation until that flash of pain, but now he saw a too-bright light and three heads crowded over him - Jack the most concerned. The other two were focused, one on what Gibbs could only describe as scraping and one on assisting with the horror show.

He felt his eyes get wide and body tense up and he quickly shut his eyes trying to block out the sensory overload. The light, people, noise, music, smell, closeness and inescapability of it all - it triggered every sense in him to shut off and flee.

But he couldn’t. He was trapped.

Memories of Paraguay assaulted him, and for a moment he was lost.

_Jack._

Jack. He could focus on Jack - on her hand in his tight grasp, her other hand gently stroking along his wrist and knuckles.

Jack was right by him, right by his hip, right next to the assistant. She was there and fully in control, able to intervene if he needed her, able to help. Not that it was likely, not that he was in any actual danger, and he knew that - but years of conditioning had him on high alert.

He wasn’t going to have a good night’s sleep for a while at any rate, but he could make it through this appointment with her steady presence.

Desperately, he tried to float back to that place of oblivion, of thinking about anything else and blocking out what was happening to him.

Jack was there. Jack was always there when he needed her to be. He tried a distraction technique, a memory - what was she wearing that day? A dark blue shirt that made her hair stand out. A black skirt he’d never seen before. Long enough to be appropriate for work, but he could still admire her calves. It was… flowy. Not tight like some of her clothing.

Every other woman he’d met had a preferred style of dressing. Usually, at least in his eyes, the two main styles for work clothes were some variation of tight or loose. Jack was a mystery. That first day, her showing up in that tight dark blue dress and those boots - damn. That’s all he thought. But then it was loose sweaters, then tight skirts, then some soft-looking suit.

Jack Sloane was so unpredictable and alluring that she had him analyzing her outfits, for Christ’s sake.

Soon after appearing in his life, she seemed to move into his mind as well. Gibbs could hear her voice or laugh like she was standing next to him. Every blonde head he saw in the corner of his vision could’ve been her. He thought about calling her over to just chat or have dinner - and did so more than once.

Jack had so quickly become a constant in his life that it scared him a little, but all he wanted was more. He’d bought that damn elephant painting as some sort of apology or acknowledgement - he didn’t know. All he knew was what he wanted. All he knew was Jack.

Consciously, he allowed himself to think of her in the room with him, and he loosened his grip on her hand. He had to have hurt her. This day was running up a list of more apologies to her, and he didn’t know how he could get even with them all. It made him feel guilty as hell, and he latched on to it. Guilt was better than fear any day.

-

Jack had to stare down Dr. Reyes and Tessa when they began. Gibbs eyes were already shut, but his grip on her hand had strengthened and there was no way she’d be abandoning him now.

The assistant at least seemed to understand and only motioned her slightly back so she had room to work. The dentist took a beat longer to accept that she wasn’t backing off, but he shrugged and got to work.

Now, Jack wasn’t averse to medical procedures. She’d seen and caused more gore than the average person. Blood, death, whatever - she was desensitized to it. But watching tiny drill bits turn teeth into dust had her not looking at the details real quick.

Whatever was going through Gibbs’ mind it seemed to keep him away from the invasive procedure being performed. She hoped that he was thinking good thoughts, or building a boat from scratch in his mind or something of that sort.

The drilling seemed to take forever, and when it stopped there was a new, worse sound that Jack never cared to hear again. The small sound of scraping inside bone.

Without warning the grip on her hand suddenly tightened to pain and her eyes flew up to Gibbs as he made a noise. His eyes were open and tense and she stood just enough to make eye contact. 

“You okay?”

He obviously couldn’t reply, but she needed the confirmation somehow. She watched for just a few seconds as he seemed lost under the cacophony of what was happening and then his eyes screwed shut again, resigned as the grip on her hand lessened but didn’t go slack.

Jack gave up trying to psychoanalyze him. This was torture, a form of it, plain and simple. Sure, had Gibbs decided to be an accountant in his youth, he might submit to the dentist chair with a clear head, thinking nothing more of it aside from an inconvenience. But he wasn’t that person with no baggage, no real trauma barely hidden beneath the surface. Frankly, that was why she trusted him so quickly in the first place.

Jack tried to sooth him with her other hand, running it along his tense knuckles and up his wrist. She studied his hand instead of his face, noting the faint scars and thick calluses from working with his hands all his life.

His fingers were long and sturdy, and not one of them was entirely straight anymore. She wondered how many had been broken on the job, how many were accidents in the basement.

Jack considered his delicate joints after years of abuse and wondered if he had arthritis that flared up when it was going to rain or that settled deep in the cold of winter. She could compare their broken bones and aches, her own wrists and thumbs with similar pain.

She could wonder about him all day, but she wanted to _know_. She wanted Gibbs to tell her, to allow her to soothe away his pain with warmth. She wanted the trust they had as colleagues and friends to open further into everything.

It was hardly a secret that Jack Sloane had a _thing_ for Gibbs. If anything, her encounter with Nick in the elevator a few weeks ago had proven that. She was sure that Gibbs knew too, had probably known since before she did. Her mind stuttered over thoughts of the previous Christmas - the baby united with his new family, the warmth of Gibbs’ arm around her and the heat of his kiss to her head. The promise of an evening spent curled up in his living room, a bottle of bourbon drawing them closer together, and then… nothing. Nothing happened.

It should have.

She’d been second guessing herself since, wondering if she’d been the one to unconsciously stop whatever was going to happen, if she’d put out the wrong signals. Or, more embarrassingly, if she was the only one with those feelings and Gibbs had tried to let her down easy.

And months went by, months of more nothing and guessing and hoping. And then the elephant in the goddamn room and now they were in a dentist’s office sharing some horrible experience because he trusted her enough to be there for him.

Mixed signals were one thing, but Jack was pretty sure this was just a case of _pull your head out of your ass and make a move_. Funny that it should all come to a head like this.

In the back of her head she wondered how long she’d have to wait for his mouth to regain feeling in order to kiss him properly.

Lost in her own thoughts, the rest of the appointment went quickly enough and soon it was done but for the paperwork. When he sat up, Gibbs swayed slightly at the blood rushing out of his head. The look of abject misery flashed on his face, betraying the haunted part of his mindset. Jack stood with him, a silent guard to keep him steady. She’d be there however long he needed.

She hoped she could stay forever.

-

The thick haze of half-numbed pain made him off-balance, almost stumbling to the checkout desk. Blindly, he paid with a card, only standing strong because of Jack’s hand curled around his arm.

Somehow they made it to his car. He waited a few minutes as she navigated to the parkway that would take him home, gauging how numb his tongue was and if it was safe yet to speak.

His head was filled with cotton and he was slightly dizzy, and he was even more grateful that she had come along. He wasn’t sure if he could drive right then. Yet, the guilt he’d identified earlier still clung to him and he hated that he’d all but demanded she come along.

“‘M sorry.” It was a start, and probably something he should’ve said earlier. To hell with rules. They never applied when it came to her, anyway.

He saw Jack hold back from jumping when he spoke. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“Draggin’ you along. Worryin’ ya. Bein’ a ass all week.”

“Hey,” Jack spared a glance toward him and took a hand off the wheel. He caught it with his own, gently this time, and allowed her to twine her fingers between his. “I’m here because you asked and I said yes. And I wasn’t around when you were being an ass this week.” She waited a beat, passing a car before adding, “You did worry me though. But that’s nothing new.” The smile she flashed his way took the edge from the accusation.

Guilt flared and settled low in his gut, taking up its usual residence. In their line of work, worry could be a constant companion. But he’d added to it, and there was nothing he could do to fix that.

For the rest of the drive he tried to regain his equilibrium. His whole head hurt, his back ached for being at an odd angle for an hour, and the tension throughout his body all week had taken its toll. The only thing that didn’t hurt was the damn tooth that caused this mess in the first place - just everything around it.

Jack got him home in one piece and he figured she’d just turn back to NCIS to get her car and go home, but she followed him in. All he wanted to do was pass out on his couch and not acknowledge that the day had happened, but Jack didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave. “Can I get you anything?”

Gibbs shook his head slightly. “Ya don’ have to stay, Jack.” Instead of sitting on the couch he walked to the bathroom to freshen up, bone tired.

“I know,” she said. He watched as she sat down her purse and jacket on the kitchen table and disappeared into the kitchen.

The living room was still empty when Gibbs came back in and he kicked off his shoes, discarded his outer layers and belt. He was tempted to start a fire, but the thought of bending over and having his head fill with blood again caused it to throb. Instead he sat back into his couch, close to giving up on consciousness all together.

He thought about checking in at work, but he had left Vance with instructions to contact him if a case came up. He doubted Vance would, but he was too off to be of any help in the field the rest of the day, and his team had the weekend off. They deserved it, too.

A few minutes later, Jack came back with a glass of tap water and a plate.

“Drink this. All of it. It’ll help. And try to eat this too.”

Gibbs took the water, noting it was tepid so as not to hurt his sensitive mouth, and the plate of toast with jam on it. “Thank you.”

She smiled and went back into the kitchen and Gibbs felt a sudden surge of longing for her to stay here and never leave. He wanted to see her things scattered around, to see her integrate into his space and make it theirs. He realized a while ago that all she had to do was ask, and he’d go get the damn moon for her. Toast and water meant a level of care no one had graced him with in, well, a very long time, and he finished both to show his gratitude.

Just as Gibbs was about to get up and search for her, Jack reappeared with a bottle of bourbon and two mugs, and Gibbs fell a little more in love with her at the sight.

“Figured this might take the edge off. Mind if I join in?”

Gibbs welcomed her to the couch with a gesture and happily took a mug as she splashed in a couple fingers of the drink.

“You know,” she said as she settled down beside him, “I dated a dentist once.”

Gibbs nearly snorted the bourbon at her tone and she laughed.

“Seriously! His name was… hell, I barely remember, Charles or something. He was a real winner, only cared about making money and his damn ugly sports car. It lasted about two dates until I saw the pattern. Never called him again.” Jack chuckled to herself as she sipped at her own drink. 

“His loss,” Gibbs said. He met her look dead on and added, “I mean it.”

Suddenly there was no need for a fire. It was another moment, an echo of last Christmas, and this time he wasn’t backing off. His mouth was back to full feeling and his Jack was by his side, and she was smiling.

“Definitely wasn’t mine,” Jack added quietly. “Dentists aren’t exactly my type.”

“Oh, yeah?” Gibbs shifted down in the cushions, bringing their heads a little more level and close together. He observed her hands grip her mug tighter, betraying anticipation and tension. Just like months ago. He was relieved, that this thing was still there, that the elephant hadn’t left the damn building. “An’ what would your type be, then?”

“Tall,” she smiled, “white haired, handsome, tendency to act like an ass for no reason and turn around and be sweet as hell.”

“Sure that’s better than a dentist?”

He barely got a laugh out before she kissed him. It was warm and gentle, careful of his tender face, and it was perfect. She tasted like bourbon and something sweet and he was drunk from it immediately.

Jack backed off before he was ready and he followed her until a hand on his chest stopped him. “You sure about this, now?”

A little miffed that their inciting incident was a trip to the dentist, Gibbs could only shake his head and smile. “Jack, hell. I think we’ve passed bein’ ready for a while.”

He kissed her at her nod, this time controlling the angle and ramping up the intensity until he had to back off for want of air. Miraculously, their mugs had remained upright, and he gratefully took a pull to sooth the throb in his jaw.

“Maybe we should wait a bit before trying that again, let you heal up.”

Gibbs let out a growl at the notion, but he couldn’t disagree. He felt like hell. His head ached, his jaw was sore, and he all around felt like garbage, but he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else, _with_ anyone else, than he was at that moment.

“Stay tonight?”

She met his gaze and it was all he could do not to capture her mouth again. “Of course. Gotta take care of my cowboy, after all.”

He stretched an arm around her and she leaned into him, both of them content with the quiet that followed. Funny how silence provided opposite bookends to his day.

Gibbs dropped a kiss to Jack’s hair, taking in her smell, and felt safe again. His house, the door locked almost symbolically, Jack by his side.

He’d go through a dozen root canals for this moment, but he was beyond thankful it only took one horrible day to get him to realize what an ass he’d been.

And he had the whole weekend to make it up to her.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a h/c for slibbs, and I happened to go to the dentist Monday for a few cavities, and basically, fuck that place.


End file.
